


the dizzying scent of nail polish

by writer_on_fire01



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: F/F, but also a healthy sprinkling of fluff, harley's having a sleepover, introvert helena, moderate angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26049475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writer_on_fire01/pseuds/writer_on_fire01
Summary: Helena has a hard time fitting in with groups. Dinah’s here to make sure she feels welcome.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Harleen Quinzel, Helena Bertinelli & Dinah Lance & Renee Montoya & Harleen Quinzel, Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 12
Kudos: 75





	the dizzying scent of nail polish

Harley is great; okay, so _great_ might not be the best term to describe her, but Helena doesn't mind her, God forbid has grown a little attached to her.

So is the rest of the group, this group as a whole including Harley, Dinah, Renee, and Cassandra. They're all currently gathered around a table at that tiny but delicious hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant they all love so much. Renee is sipping at a margarita, Cassandra attacking a taco with full vigor. Dinah watches with amusement as Harley tries to compete with Cassandra's taco-eating skills, munching on two at once while Dinah cheers her on and Renee mutters that she's disgusting.

So yeah, Harley herself isn't the problem. She's not that bad once you get to know her. The problem is that she's so _loud_. Not just her voice--her personality, too. Helena, on the other hand, is anything but, and finds herself and whatever she has to say being drowned out by Harley on a regular basis. 

"Brucie, can I get you anything?" Harley enthuses at her hyena, mouth still filled with tacos. 

"Gross!" Renee reprimands. 

"Hey, eating is a primal instinct. It's not gross. Just human nature," Cassandra defends her guardian. 

"And that's why you refuse to watch any movies with naked people," Dinah chimes in.

Cassandra goes red. "Do not!" 

Dinah raises her hand in surrender. "Hey, I never said that was a bad thing. In fact, I probably would, too, if I could get away with it in my mid-twenties." 

"Control your fuckin' hyena, Quinn!" howls Renee, alarmed, and as if on cue, Bruce breaks away from Harley's loving grip and begins chasing a poor college-looking woman. 

"Sorry, sugar!" Harley hollers to the woman by way of apology, then turning back to her tacos. 

Helena dips her fork into her burrito bowl, swirling around the salsa with the plastic utensil. Now it's Cass's turn to speak.

"Bad day for her," Cass observes, eyes trained on Bruce's screaming victim.

_And now Harley says something to defend herself._

"Kid, please. It's a great party story, and that in and of itself more then makes up for it.

_At this point, Renee and or Dinah will make some quip._

"Yeah. People'll be like, why do you only have one leg? And she'll be like, oh man, that's such a fun story," says Dinah. 

"I'd be surprised if the bitch isn't dead within the hour," Renee comments.

Helena isn't really hungry for her burrito bowl anymore, so she shoves it aside and gets up from the table, putting down a five to cover her portion of the meal before heading outside, nudging Dinah on the shoulder on the way out, just so that nobody will be able to say she left without telling anybody later. "See you tomorrow," she mutters, careful not to interrupt the flow of the conversation. 

It's always the same: Harley does something mischievous, then Cassandra chimes in, Renee reprimands her, and Dinah has some fun comment to make everyone snicker. That's the basic formula, anyways. And nowhere does Helena fit into that equation. 

She trails her hand on the wall as she walks towards the door, just in time to see a crowd circled around Bruce, who is now playing with the woman he had been chasing just a moment earlier. The woman seems to have discovered that Bruce is actually pretty friendly, and hesitantly lets him sniff her hand. 

Helena is making towards her motorcycle when she feels Dinah's hand on her shoulder. Startled, Helena whirls around. She's actually maneuvered into a fighting stance before she realizes it's just Dinah. Used to this, Dinah makes no comment.

"Hey, why're you leaving?" Dinah asks, frowning. She's trying to make like Helena has some important role in their group dynamic, that she'll be missed. It's all bullshit, but Helena appreciates that she cares enough for the charade anyways. 

Shrugging, Helena tries to come up with a response. "I finished my bowl," she finally decides on. "Plus, somebody's gotta bring my bike home."

"That's why we brought Renee's pickup truck," Dinah points out.

"I just don't feel like socializing, okay? It's such a headache." This much Helena is willing to admit, but she'll probably take the fact that she wishes she could participate more to the grave (she's never been a fan of emotional vulnerability). 

"I get that," says Dinah. "But I'll tell you what. We were going to go to Harley's later, have some sort of adult sleepover or whatever. Pretty stupid, but so are all of Harley's ideas. Plus, Cassandra wanted to, and who are we to deny her anything? I was hoping you would come, so if you're, like, socially recharged by then you should." 

She appreciates the offer, she really does. Something in Helena's resolve softens, but she still doesn't want to subject herself to a Harley sleepover, especially when she hasn't slept in a good forty-eight hours. "I don't know if you have the authority to invite me to Harley's apartment," is the excuse she finally decides on.

"Give me a moment," says Dinah. She pulls out her phone, types something, then a moment later shoves the phone in Helena's face. It's a text conversation with Harley.

_Dinah: Helena wants to know if she's invited to the sleepover_

_Harley: HELL YEAH SHE IS!!!!!! tell her to bring her crossbow and her abs ;3_

"So, yeah, I think she wants you there," Dinah enthuses, sounding triumphant. 

Now Helena is only human, and nobody with any sort of heart could have reasonably said no to Dinah in this situation. So she doesn't. "I'll think about it," she promises instead before riding away. 

\---

An intense battle takes place later that day in Helena's mind as she tries to decide whether or not she should humor Harley by going to the sleepover. There's the part of her that wants to be included in their dumb group activities, laugh, and please her friends by accepting their invitation (Dinah, mostly). And then there's the part of her that knows that it will be very chaotic and draining.

Eventually, Helena is spared from having to make this decision herself when she hears the shaking of a hairpin in her lock and Harley throws open the door animatedly, wearing a manic grin. Cassandra is clearly responsible for the break-in; Helena can tell from the hairpin clutched in one of her hands.

"Jesus, Harley. Knock. What if I'd been, like, naked or something?" Helena spits, taken aback.

"No offense, dude, but you really don't seem like the kind of person who walks around their apartment naked," points out Harley. She's right, which somehow makes the observation more irritating.

"How is that a _no offense_ thing?" Helena wonders.

Harley does not wait for an answer. Instead, she grasps Helena's wrist and forcefully pulls. "C'mon, help a girl out," she urges Cassandra, who obliges, taking Helena's other wrist.

"Wow, you really _are_ strong," Cassandra marvels as, even between the two of them, they fail to budge Helena. 

"These shoes have really good friction." 

"Right!" Harley snorts. "Yeah. We all know you're yolked. Anyways. You're coming to my sleepover!"

In the end, it is less brute strength and more the power of continued annoyance that ends with Helena sat awkwardly in what used to be Dinah's car.

"Renee and Dinah are already at my place," Harley says perkily as she drives (quite recklessly), sticking out her tongue every once in a while for Cassandra to place an Oreo on. 

"Did you kidnap _them_?" 

"No. They just came. You wouldn't have, though, so I thought it necessary to kidnap you."

"How do you even know where I live?" Helena demands. 

Cassandra answers for Harley this time. "She knows your landlord." 

"Damn it," huffs Helena, crossing her arms. But secretly, she's a little pleased that they'd gone through so much trouble to find her.

It takes around seven minutes of driving (and by extension, seven minutes of shenanigans) for Harley, Cassandra, and Helena to reach the apartment complex where the former two live. It seems like a perfectly respectable establishment until Harley opens the door to her own apartment.

Loud heavy metal music pulses through the door, the sheer force of it making Helena flinch upon entering. The walls of the front room are all painted in shades of magenta and blue ("to match my hair!") and the couch has very clearly been torn up by Bruce. Empty junk food containers fill the area, and there's a television set in the middle.

Dinah is looking bored as she searches over an assortment of nail polish colors on Harley's coffee table, and Renee has her feet resting on a free corner of said coffee table and is drinking from a bottle of beer.

Upon Helena's entry, Dinah looks up briefly, smiles, and flicks her wrist in a lazy sort of wave. Renee doesn't bother with greeting her. 

"Alright, ladies!" Harley chirps in a too high-pitched voice, throwing both her arms in the air with the force of her enthusiasm. "Are we ready for girls' night, or are we ready for girls' night?" 

"I think we're ready for girls' night," hums Dinah distractedly from her spot on the couch.

"Yeah, we're ready," Cassandra agrees after a moment's consideration.

"Dear God, if Harley's involved, I'm anything but," Renee grumbles.

Helena points to where Renee is sitting. "What she said."

At this, Harley lets out an inexplicable giggle, slapping Helena on the back. "Oh, you're just too much." She throws her head back in an eerily hyena-like cackle. Then, to the whole group, "we're watching _Legally Blonde_!" 

"Noooooo." Cassandra lets out a mournful groan. "Why?"

"I have to champion the smart dumb blondes of the world," Harley explains, unfazed. 

"That makes no sense," objects Helena. How can someone specifically described as being dumb also be smart?

"It will once we start the movie," Harley assures her.

"Harley, _please_ don't make us watch that movie," Renee begs. "Every time I see it it makes me want to cry--not in a good, emotional way, rather in a I've-lost-all-faith-in-humanity sort of way." 

"You'll be blackout drunk by the time it starts," Dinah points out, pulling a bottle of clear base coat from the array of nail polish bottles. Helena goes to sit by her, noticing the digging of a spring into her thigh as she does so. 

"Hopefully," Renee replies with an indignant snort. 

"Well, what do _you_ think we should watch, Miss Sophisticated?" Harley rebuttles, hand on her hip. 

She's probably expecting this question to stump Renee, but it does not. "Something by Quentin Tarantino."

"That's the _Kill Bill_ guy, right?" Cassandra asks. Renee nods, looking mildly pleased.

" _Booo_ ring!" Harley sings out into the room.

"And _Legally Blonde_ isn't?" Dinah objects.

Helena sighs quietly, wrapping her arms around her knees. This is where she gets left out of the conversation. Now that they've gotten started talking about pop culture, Helena will have no input. She half-listens as Harley and Renee passionately debate the merits of _Legally Blonde_ and some Tarantino movie Helena's never heard of called _Death Proof_ , which Harley argues is boring because _people don't even start dying until, like, forty minutes in!_ Eventually Harley wins the argument, probably due to the fact that Renee doesn't care enough, so they end up watching _Legally Blonde_.

"So, let me get this straight: you don't wanna watch _Death Proof_ because people don't die until forty minutes in, so instead you choose a movie where nobody dies through the whole thing?" asks Dinah, a mildly amused smirk on her face.

"If you wanna go the death route, you gotta go big or go home," Harley explains knowledgeably. "If I get my tasters set for a bloody movie, I want it _really_ bloody. If I'm not watching a bloody movie, however, I do not expect blood and therefore will not be disappointed when there is little." 

"Fair," Helena agrees with a nod, because her reasoning actually makes sense (an anomaly when it comes to Harley Quinn). Nobody acknowledges it, not even Harley to give her a pat on the back and cry, _see? I'm right!_. Meanwhile Helena still has no clue what type of person one would classify as a smart dumb blonde. 

Instead of listening to the movie or the running commentary Cassandra, Harley, and Renee have going about it, Helena's eyes flit to where Dinah is working on painting a crimson polish onto her nails. Helena wouldn't have pinned Dinah as being artistic, but the strokes run smoothly over her nails, not ever going over the edge, and it's mesmerizing. The crimson color compliments her skin perfectly, too. 

Dinah sees Helena looking. "I could do yours next," she offers. Helena blushes for a moment at having been caught watching, but then it occurs to her that, if she is included in the activity, she will be able to observe without it being considered anything unusual, so she nods amicably.

"That would be nice. Thanks."

The other woman doesn't even look up from her own nails. "Don't mention it. Pick a color." 

Reluctantly, Helena tears her eyes from Dinah's hands and they land on the rows and rows of Harley's nail polish (some of which is currently being used to paint a mural on Harley's wall) and begins sifting through the colors. 

There are some iridescent shades that change color with the light, and Helena enjoys twisting the bottles at different angles and watching the tones shift. The rational part of her knows that getting this painted on her nails would result in her never being able to pay attention to anything else for at least two weeks, though, so she puts the iridescent polish down, discarding a shade that changes colors according to the temperature for the same reason and begins looking for something else. 

Some of the polishes sparkle, and some have little bits of rainbow glitter scattered throughout. Some of them are matte, and Helena likes the flat tones. The one she ends up picking, though, is a sparkly yet not too flashy gold color that reminds her pleasantly of the navy blue and gold color scheme Dinah's got going on.

Helena takes the little bottle off of the table, running it under her fingers as she refocuses her attention back to Dinah's own nail painting endeavors. She's nearly done, and is now applying a glossy top coat. Some of the top coats Harley owns have chunks of holographic glitter mixed in, but this one is just plain. 

"All done," Dinah announces, causing Helena to break from her trance. It occurs to her just how loudly Harley is yelling as she works on painting blood onto the dismembered unicorn she's creating on the seafoam blue wall. Helena winces; this combined with the noise of the movie is, frankly, too obnoxious. "You pick a color yet?"

Helena nods, handing Dinah the little gold bottle. She nods approvingly. "Great choice. I would have thought you would have gone for dark purple, though." 

"I'm a woman of many mysteries," Helena quips, causing Dinah to scoff with amusement.

"Ain't that the truth, man." She begins rummaging around the bottles, pulling out a couple of clear ones. "Do you have any preference for the top coat?"

"Just the plain one," Helena tells her. Dinah nods approvingly.

"Okay, great. I'll wait a moment for my nails to dry, then we can get started on yours." 

Helena's not entirely sure how long it takes for nails to dry. She's never really done hers before. One time as a child she'd been caught rummaging around her mother's collection of nail polish and had been yelled at afterwards, and that had pretty much been the end of Helena's nail polish career until now.

By this point, Cassandra is also working on the dismembered unicorn. "Can I do the guts?" she calls enthusiastically at Harley.

"Go crazy, kid!" Harley hollers back. Helena doesn't know why they're yelling. They're in the same room and it's giving her a headache. "Just make them sparkly! Everyone knows that unicorns have sparkly guts!"

"No they don't," Helena mutters. "Contrary to popular belief, unicorns were, at a point, real. They were just ugly as hell. They looked like deformed horses with rhino horns. And I would bet you anything they didn't have sparkly guts."

Harley and Cassandra pay her no attention, but to Helena's surprise, Dinah lets out an amused snort. "Dude, is that real, or are you fucking with me?"

For a moment Helena doesn't even know how to respond. "Y-yeah, that's real," she informs Dinah eventually in a stutter. 

"Wow." Dinah raises her eyebrows, seemingly impressed. She's got her phone out, and she's pulled up an article detailing exactly what Helena had just told her. 

Without anything else to pay attention to, Helena ends up forcing herself to watch five grueling minutes of _Legally Blonde_. The woman, after having by some horrible oversight from the admission staff gotten accepted into Harvard, is now strutting around with an ostentatious outfit to rival Harley's (okay, not quite) and is getting offended when nobody takes her seriously. 

"We should watch Twilight next!" Harley enthusiastically chirps (let the record state that Renee is now passed out on the floor, hence why she has no contributions to this particular interaction). 

"Kill me," Helena mutters, burying her face in her hands. Again, she expects the comment to receive no attention, and again she is pleasantly surprised and flustered at Dinah's amused giggle. 

She watches the movie for another couple of minutes before Dinah says, "alright, I think my nails are dry. H, give me your hands." 

Helena lets Dinah take her left hand, feeling her face color at the gentle manner in which she places it on top of her own. One hand occupied, she takes the lid of the clear base coat between her teeth and twists, attempting to pop the cap out. Helena watches, her face feeling unusually warm as the edge of her tongue brushes against the lid, teeth firm against it as she works to open the bottle. 

Then, Dinah places the open bottle down on the table, freeing her hand to take the cap out of her mouth and dip it in. Once again, she's painting, but instead of her own nails it's Helena's. The polish goes down in the same neat, elegant strokes. 

Helena has to duck her head down to avoid letting Dinah see her blush; somehow it hadn't occurred to her that the process of Dinah painting her nails would mean at least twenty minutes of hand-holding. 

"Your nails are pretty long," Dinah observes, looking down at said long nails. 

"I don't clip them often. Or, like, ever," Helena admits a little sheepishly. "Only when they start to interfere with my life, which happens maybe every couple of months."

"Yeah, that would get annoying," Dinah agrees, but she seems too focused on the job at hand to really be paying attention. Helena doesn't mind. Concentrating Dinah is hot, and a hot Dinah is, well, hot. 

Helena takes a moment to look at the wall currently being painted, hoping that it will distract her enough from hot Dinah to get her face a normal color. Currently Cassandra is working on the unicorn guts. They look alarmingly realistic, and from an artistic standpoint, pretty impressive, although this may be due to the fact that the child has pulled up a photo of human entrails on her smartphone as a reference.

"That kid is going somewhere, I just don't know where," Helena comments to Dinah.

Dinah looks up, then at Cassandra. "Boy, tell me about it." She goes back to painting Helena's nails with a reverent smile. "That's just what happens when you're being raised by Harley." Somehow they seem closer than they were before, and Helena can feel Dinah's breath on her clavicle as the other woman looks down at the nails. "Other hand?

Helena obliges, setting her left hand on the top of the couch and giving Dinah her right. Again, Dinah takes it in her own. 

Having Dinah paint her nails is relaxing. It wakes the attention away from Harley's obnoxious screeching, and all Helena really has to focus on is the mesmerizing of the little brush swiping against her fingernails, and how Dinah's fingertips feel warm and comforting against her own. 

Helena actually starts to drift off, and ends up forcing herself to listen to Harley and Cassandra's shenanigans on the other side of the room to keep awake. But even they have began to calm down, Cassandra working serenely on the unicorn to add finishing touches, painting it all over with a top coat and adding sparkle flakes where needed. Harley has abandoned the mural and is now dripping nail polish down her arm, then watching as it pours down like blood and hits the carpet. Quite frankly, the polish looks enough like blood for it to be creepy. The only thing reminding Helena that it's just nail polish is the stench the stuff gives off, which is starting to make her a little nauseous. She rubs at her eyes.

"Dinah, can we go to another room or something? I think I'm about to pass out from the nail polish scent."

"I feel that," says Dinah sympathetically, patting Helena on the shoulder. She then extends her voice to Harley. "Oy, Harley! This room stinks. You mind if we go to the kitchen?"

Harley looks up from her artificially gored arm to nod perkily. She doesn't need to tell either woman twice, and Helena nearly cries with relief as the finally enter a portion of the apartment where the stench is almost entirely absent (after both having nearly tripped over Renee, of course). They relocate to sitting on Harley's kitchen counter. It's much quieter this way, too. 

"That's better," sighs Dinah with relief. 

"Yeah." Helena couldn't agree more, but when she opens her mouth to say so it turns into a yawn, and suddenly Helena's entire jaw is unhinged in what has to be the loudest yawn ever. "Sorry, I'm a bit tired," she mumbles, blushing. 

"No shit, Sherlock." Dinah smiles kindly, raising a hand to Helena's chin. "Maybe you should get some sleep." 

"My nails aren't done yet." She knows it's a weak excuse, what with her shoulders hunched over with exhausting and her fists scrubbing at her eyes. Dinah's hand flits to her arm. 

"I'm sorry I roped you into this sleepover deal. I could tell that you were tired, but I could also tell that you felt left out and all that, so it was sort of a weird ultimatum, and I should've just let you be because I could've told you that we would get no sleep staying over at Harley's..." She trails off. 

"I'm sure Harley would have kidnapped me anyways," Helena (rightfully) points out. "It's hardly your fault." 

"Yeah," Dinah sighs.

It's only then that the full weight of what Dinah had said hits her. "Wait, what?"

"What do you mean wait what?"

Helena pauses for a moment, finding that she's having a little trouble functioning. "You said...you said that you could tell I felt left out, and that I was tired."

Dinah looks confused, frowning. "Yeah, man. What about it?" 

"Is-is it that obvious?" Helena looks down, choosing to stare at the sparkles and gold tones on her fingernails rather than those in Dinah's kind eyes. 

"The tiredness? Absolutely. You feeling left out was a bit more of a wild guess, but I was right, wasn't I?" 

"Yeah." Helena whispers it so softly that Dinah doesn't even hear it at first, so she has to reiterate. "Yeah." 

Dinah's hand makes its way to Helena's chin, pulling it up slightly and forcing Helena to look at her. "You shouldn't have to feel left out." The concern in her eyes is genuine. "You shouldn't have to be losing sleep, either." 

"There's nothing we can do about either one, is there?" asks Helena sharply, jerking away from Dinah's sort touch. She hates that she's done it, hates that she's being mean to Dinah when she's been nothing but sweet, but some primal instinct inside her also hates that Dinah is able to read her like a book. It makes her heart flutter dangerously in her chest. 

The woman doesn't seem fazed, though, pulling her hand back. "Of course we can. I'm sorry we didn't make more of an effort to include you."

Defensiveness vaporizing, Helena curls into herself, bringing her feet up to the counter and tucking them behind her arms. "No. It's not that you guys haven't made an effort, because you _have_. I can see that. Harley dragged me over here, and you invited me in the first place. I appreciate it. It's sweet. But there's nothing anyone can do about the fact that nobody under the sun with a personality like mine can compete for attention with Harley." 

Dinah's expression turns sad, and Helena hates it. She doesn't want to be pitied. _Why are people pitying me?_

"Well, I'm here," she says, the ghost of a smile twitching on her face. "You always have my attention. No matter what Harley does, my eyes are always on you. I wish you knew that. That even if there were twenty Harley's, I'd still look at you every time." 

Helena feels herself breaking down and she thinks she may be about to cry, which is awful because the last time she cried was when she was eleven. It's downright embarrassing, the feeling of her cheeks getting hot and her eyes stinging. Even more embarrassing is the feeling that, any minute now, her throat may break into a sob, because she's so tired and she doesn't know what she ever did to deserve such kindness and she simultaneously feels like the unluckiest and luckiest woman in the world. So many feelings that Helena might just collapse, like one of those fainting goats in the videos Cassandra always shows her. 

When she opens her mouth to say _thanks_ she can't bring herself to do it because she knows it'll come out all wrong, the sound of a timid little girl instead of that of a strong, independent woman, so she just keeps quiet, nodding at Dinah to acknowledge her gratitude instead. Dinah gets it; of this much Helena is certain. 

Dinah swings her legs over the counter to face Helena, wrapping her arms softly around her shoulder and moving in to kiss her cheek, but in some spurt of madness (or is it sanity?) Helena whips her head around and opens her mouth ever so slightly so that the kiss lands on her lips instead. Does Dinah mind? No, Helena doesn't think she does. 

She should've gotten sleep that night. She really should've--with Harley's surprisingly generous offer to let her use her bed, there was no excuse _not_ to. Still, Helena stays up all night thinking about Dinah.

\---

_Three Weeks Later_

Renee, Harley, and Cassandra have been teasing Helena and Dinah relentlessly for the past week and a half, ever since they'd found out that Dinah and Helena were together (from Dinah's relationship status on Facebook, nonetheless). Helena is convinced that it will never, ever stop, but she's fine with this. She's just glad she has Dinah now. 

So is the rest of the group, this group as a whole including Harley, Dinah, Renee, Helena, and Cassandra. They're all currently gathered around a table at that tiny but delicious hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant they all love so much. Renee is sipping at a margarita, Cassandra attacking a taco with full vigor. Dinah and Helena watch with amusement as Harley tries to compete with Cassandra's taco-eating skills, munching on two at once while Dinah cheers her on, Helena questions her life's decisions, and Renee mutters that she's disgusting. Helena and Dinah sit side-by-side, holding hands underneath the table whenever the opportunity arises. 

Helena feels a strange sense of deja-vu. The only difference between this scenario and the one that had occurred three weeks ago is that now she's genuinely happy to be there, that she feels included. Oh, and she has a girlfriend now. That's cool, too. 

Helena catches Dinah eying her burrito bowl and nudges it slightly towards the woman. "You want a bite?"

"Sure," Dinah says, beaming at Helena. "You can have one of my tacos." 

The tacos _do_ look good, chunks of beef, corn, and lettuce sticking out the sides. "You sure?"

"Of course," Dinah assures her, handing Helena one of the tacos. Their hands brush slightly, and Helena feels herself blush a little. 

"Can I have some?" asks Renee with a shit-eating grin, rolling her eyes at the pair.

"Read the room, sugar," scolds Harley playfully, sticking her tongue out at Renee. "They're having a moment."

"We're not having a moment, we're just having tacos," Helena objects from where she sits, turning to scowl at Harley. To demonstrate, she opens her mouth and places a good half of the taco inside.

"Who are you, Harley?" Cassandra pokes fun at the large quantity of taco currently stuffed in Helena's cheeks. Helena is spared from answering, given that doing so would be quite rude at this particular moment. 

"She wishes," Harley scoffs.

"Oh, shut up, Harley, we all know Crossbow is a thousand times cooler than you," says Dinah playfully, eyes flickering to Helena. 

"You really think so?" Cassandra muses. "It's sort of tight, because you're both, like, really cool." 

"I don't think Helena especially cares about being cool," Renee points out. Helena nods her confirmation. 

"That's what makes her so cool!" declares Cassandra empathetically, throwing her hands out for emphasis. "She's this cool without trying." 

Amused, Helena leans into Dinah's shoulder to whisper, "did I forget to tell her about the whole practicing-in-the-mirror thing?"

"Don't worry, babe, your secret's safe with me," Dinah shoots back playfully.

"Ugh. Murmuring sweet nothings into eachother's ears certainly detracts from your coolness, Helena. I think Harley might have the lead now."

Triumphant, Harley pumps a fist in the air.

"I still think Helena's cooler," inputs Renee, jabbing a thumb in Helena's direction. 

"Montoya, sugar, how _could_ you?" Harley pouts. 

"Maybe you guys should have a cool-off," Dinah suggests, swallowing a bite of the burrito bowl. "Some set of competitions to decide who's cooler."

"I don't really care enough for that." Helena shrugs disinterestedly, going back to her taco.

"Okay. That was, like, a coolness power move. Helena's definitely cooler," announces Cassandra with an approving nod. 

Helena doesn't care. It's nice to be cool, but at the end of the day, having her own little part in their friend group is enough to satisfy her. She's not yet sure how she fits into the formula, but she's certain that she somehow does.

Really, the coolest thing Helena can think of is the fact that she's Dinah's girlfriend now. That's hella cool. Helena makes a mental note to tell her that sometime. 

**Author's Note:**

> I referenced Death Proof because MEW was in that movie. I've been watching a bunch of movies she's played in, Death Proof is my least favorite so far but it was still alright. Also, all of my knowledge of nail polish comes from Simply Nailogical on Youtube, I'm horrible at doing my own nails. Also, the unicorn thing is totally real. Look it up.  
> Side note: as it turns out, the scent of nail polish is neither cute nor romantic. It's horrifying. I've already written like 3/4 of this fic though so I'll just run with it. Tell me what you think :)


End file.
